Euthanasia campaigner's attempted murder charge dropped

Nov 1, 2011, 23:34 GMT

Wellington - A professor who has campaigned for the public discussion of voluntary euthanasia and stood accused of attempting to murder his terminally ill 85-year-old mother pleaded guilty to a lesser charge Wednesday, news reports said.

Sean Davison, 50, a New Zealander who lives and works in South Africa, had earlier pleaded not guilty to attempting to kill his mother, Patricia, who was a doctor and psychiatrist, by giving her morphine in Dunedin in 2006.

When the fourth day of his trial began, crown counsel Robin Bates filed an amended charge alleging that Davison had 'incited and procured' his mother to commit suicide and he pleaded guilty.

Remanding him on bail until sentencing on November 24, the judge directed that a pre-sentence report consider the possibility of him being given an electronically monitored sentence, the Otago Daily Times reported on its website.

Davison's counsel was quoted as saying the fact that he would be discharged on the attempted murder count was equivalent to an acquittal.

Davison, who is the father of two small boys, heads the Forensic DNA Analysis Laboratory at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, which specialises in identifying DNA to resolve South African human rights cases.

He wrote a book called Before We Say Goodbye, published in 2009, in which he said his cancer-stricken mother had asked him to help her die when he returned to New Zealand to look after her as she went on a hunger-strike to try to end her life.

'She and I, both believing like many people that the law should permit voluntary euthanasia with safeguards, had spoken of it and been in agreement,' he wrote. 'But it is something else when one is expected to put this belief into practice.'

He said that for legal reasons the publishers had omitted 'a few things that were in my diary. I regret this but abide by their request.'

When the trial began, the court was told that police charged Davison after drafts of the book containing comments deleted from the final publication had been sent anonymously to journalists who reported them.